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Prefered format for videos in Unity
Eike May 12, 2019
Hello,

I'm currently testing a point and click created with Unity which shall support Linux. The first problem was that the animated intro didn't display (and nothing else instead either). It seems it's using H.264 packed in an MP4 container. But according to the Unity page I found, "H.264 (typically in a .mp4, .m4v, or .mov format) is the optimal supported video codec because it offers the best compatibility across platforms." Which seemed to be what the developers were doing!?

So... What's the preferred way to pack (high quality) video in Unity?

Ciao,
Eike
tuubi May 12, 2019
Quoting: EikeSo... What's the preferred way to pack (high quality) video in Unity?
The table on the Unity manual page you linked to suggests that only .ogv, .vp8 and .webm videos are supported on all three platforms, including Linux. Of these three container formats, your best bet for quality is probably opus audio and vp9 video in a webm container. Let me know if you need help with encoding, but everything you need should be available in your distro repositories.
Eike May 14, 2019
Quoting: tuubiThe table on the Unity manual page you linked to suggests that only .ogv, .vp8 and .webm videos are supported on all three platforms, including Linux. Of these three container formats, your best bet for quality is probably opus audio and vp9 video in a webm container. Let me know if you need help with encoding, but everything you need should be available in your distro repositories.

VP8, not VP9, right?
Thanks for the tips!
tuubi May 14, 2019
No, I meant the VP9 video codec, not the older VP8.
Eike May 14, 2019
I'm asking because Unity explicitly has VP8 in its compatibility list (and unfortunately doesn't mention VP9 at all).
tuubi May 14, 2019
Quoting: EikeI'm asking because Unity explicitly has VP8 in its compatibility list (and unfortunately doesn't mention VP9 at all).
Are you talking about the formats Unity can transcode a video clip into? If you are, you should be able to encode the video externally, and disable transcoding in Unity. As far as I can see, Unity can only encode vp8 or h264 video, while they list containers in their platform compatibility table that can't hold either of those formats.

In any case, VP9 offers better image quality if Unity can play it back on all target platforms, but VP8 is not awful either.

(I assumed my original answer was correct based on the fact that @mdiluz "liked" it, and he works for Unity these days.)
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